Good afternoon, everypony! My apologies for being late once again with a review, but once again I was indisposed on Saturday as I was away in Bay City, MI, judging for Michigan State History Day (which honestly was more exhausting than it was fun, if I'm being totally honest). But I got around to seeing the new episode twice now, and I have to say that I loved it. No Second Prances (aside from having a horrible pun in the episode title) was a very nice opportunity for the writers to give some closure to older story arcs, and man oh man did they nail it. Once again, since this was largely a character driven episode, I'll be focusing on the primary players in this one, namely Starlight, Trixie, and Twilight. Without further ado, let's begin.

So first of all, I have to say that I really thought that every major character here was very well balanced. Nobody was a Mary Sue and nobody was ridiculously evil or stupid; they made mistakes you'd expect them to make, and it worked out very nicely. In Starlight's case, her biggest mistake was probably not being more discerning about who exactly Trixie was. She saw similarities between their pasts on the surface, but she didn't delve in further with Trixie, and that probably would have helped her earlier on get a better understanding for Trixie. Trixie's always been far more narcissistic and ego-driven than Starlight ever was, and that might have helped Starlight be more careful and discerning as to why exactly Trixie was befriending her. Other than that, she mostly taught Twilight a valuable lesson about giving second chances in a very clever way; the "second chances" storyline has been seen a million times in all sorts of properties, but here it was clever because we have a newer character who arguably has done worse things being, far more easily, given a second chance (Starlight) than an older character who even at her worst didn't almost destroy Equestria. Starlight's able to nicely juxtapose how hypocritical Twilight is being if she's OK with Starlight but not Trixie, and it raises some interesting questions, namely, does Twilight simply think that only certain kinds of friendship can work, or with only certain types of ponies? Obviously that's not the case in the end, but the circumstances themselves with Starlight at the center made this episode far smarter in its delivery than it could have been. She ended the episode making a brand new friend of her own, and hopefully this is yet another great step for her in learning about friendship. Solid second episode for the new Starlight, and can't wait to see what's next for her.

Building off of that, let's talk about Twilight. While I at times found some of her distrust of Trixie and hounding of Starlight a bit head scratching and out of character, it still made sense enough for two different reasons. In Starlight's case, having a student like this is still very new for Twilight, not to mention she had the added pressure of making a good impression on her own mentor, Princess Celestia. In Trixie's case, it really turned out that she didn't distrust Trixie because of what she'd done (because, again, it was peanuts compared to Starlight's past crimes), but rather, because of who she was. She and Trixie had never particularly gotten along very well, mostly because of Trixie's out of control ego; even the last time we saw Trixie, they didn't truly make up at the end. And even here, I actually really liked that they didn't become thick as thieves at the end. They made up, and will probably get along far better from now on, but the primary redemption for Trixie or reconciliation was not a result of Twilight or between her and Trixie. She helped Starlight, but Starlight was the primary catalyst here, not her, and I liked that. She's going to take longer than Starlight will to trust Trixie because she has an actual past with her, which makes plenty sense. Heck, even her three friends at Trixie's show (AJ, Pinkie, and Fluttershy) seemed alright with Trixie, far more than Twilight did. Top that off with some hilarious panicky, OCD Twilight, and she had a very good showing here.

Finally, Trixie herself had a very nice return. The one thing that threw me off about her was her voice; it sounded fine, but very, very different from how it sounded in her first two appearances, and I have no idea if they switched VAs for her or what. Other than that, this was the redemption episode she deserved. She's still bombastic and completely full of herself, but she's clearly getting better and trying just to be a good entertainer now. Very interestingly, she also seemed a bit depressed, and I think we also really got a great sense of how awkward and anti-social she is. It's not hard to understand how someone as odd as her, who regularly refers to herself in the third person and talks very loudly, could have a hard time her whole life making friends. This could also explain her extreme reaction to Starlight nearly ending their friendship when she, more or less, almost throws her life away to a manticore; again, normal ponies wouldn't react to losing a friend this way, but someone who's super socially awkward to the point that, well into adulthood, they've never managed to maintain a single friendship, could if they were feeling down enough. But thankfully they didn't make Trixie a Mary Sue either; she's still narcissistic and annoying in her own way, especially to Twilight, namely because she still doesn't like Twilight. She resents that Twilight seems like one of those ponies who just constantly walk on gold paved roads, and that became apparent when she nearly lost Starlight's friendship over her joy at screwing up Twilight's plans. As I said, this was exactly the redemption she needed; much better than that 30 second apology at the end of her last episode, but also hardly your run of the mill "second chances" episode either. Trixie is still a character in that she has flaws and makes many of the same mistakes she used to, but she's also clearly getting better, and it should be much easier for her to grow now that she has an actual best friend for the first time in her life.

Last but not least, let's give credit to the comedic beats in this episode. This was a bucking funny episode loaded with funny bits from the Mane 6, background ponies, the main characters of the episode, you name it (they even had this amazing gag where Starlight, inexplicably, is apparently the one pony who Angel the Devil Bunny actually adores, I loved that!). The only one that really felt forced was the Mrs. Cake bit for a couple of reasons, but it was more than made up for in the Princess Celestia gags with Derpy, Vinyl, and Cranky. Oh my word, those were some of the funniest background pony/princess gags EVER, and they couldn't have ended the episode on a funnier gag if they tried! Some of the faces also helped nail the comedy down too, and I love that DHX continues to experiment with the characters' facial expressions. Overall, this was as solid as this episode could be. Was it perfect? No, but not in a way that I'd complain about it. Any flaws it has were super minor and pale in comparison to the things it did so, so right. Great episode with some great humor and great developments. I'd say this episode was great and powerful, indeed.